THE REAL 5TH-CENTURY PELAGIUS BRITANNICUS

VS

OUR ALLEGED 19TH-CENTURY “ULTIMATE PELAGIAN,” HENRICUS

Bishop Augustine never met this monk and spiritualcounselor Pelagius in person, even when he passedthrough Hippo in late 410. While in Rome, Pelagius hadbeen the sponsor of a “moral rearmament” or “spiritualathleticism” movement. He seems to have been able toappeal particularly to affluent church ladies, whom heurged to set an example through works of virtue andascetic living. The bishop saw the attitudes ofPelagius’s followers as dangerously similar to theerror of Donatism, in that they fancied that they couldby their own virtue set themselves apart from the commonherd as ones upon whom God was particularly smiling.

While Pelagius had gone off to the Holy Land and hadthere become an unwilling center of controversy as hevisited sacred sites, others back in Africa were wadinginto this fracas with the hierarchical church authorityAugustine. Whatever the merits of the case, of coursethe bishop’s side was going to prevail and the monk’sside was eventually going to be suppressed.

How is this of relevance? Its relevance is due to thefact that, recently, in a book issued by the press ofThoreau’s alma mater Harvard University, Henry is beingnow characterized as the “ultimate Pelagian”!

Go figure.

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Pelagianism

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Pelagius was born, presumably somewhere in the British Isles such as in Ireland (because of his name Brito or Britannicus — although the Pelagian Islands of Lampedusa, Linosa, and Lampione are in the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Malta). In appearance this monk would be tall and portly (Jerome would say “grandis et corpulentus”) but he would devote himself to practical asceticism.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

355 CE

Pelagianism “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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At this point Pelagius, one of those who were trying to transform practical Christianity into a form of religious athleticism, had sailed away from Rome permanently and landed on the coast of North Africa near Hippo. Per Augustine’s DE PECCAT. ORIG. he had lived in Rome for “a very long time,” so presumably he had been there at least since the reign of Pope Anastasius (398-401CE). During his period in Rome this ascetic monk had composed:

Pelagius thought Bishop Augustine to be excessively pessimistic in his view that humankind was sinful by nature and needed to rely totally upon grace for salvation. Instead he offered that human beings have a natural capacity to reject evil and seek God, that Christ’s admonition, “Be ye perfect,” presupposes this capacity, and that grace is the natural ability given by God to seek and to serve God. Rejecting the doctrine of original sin, he suggested that little children are innocent of the sin of Adam and do not need baptism in order to attain grace. He denied the primitive state in paradise and original sin, insisted on the naturalness of concupiscence and the death of the body, and ascribed the actual existence and universality of sin to the bad example which Adam set by his first sin.

Such ideas were deeply rooted in Stoicism rather than in Christianity: he regarded the moral strength of man’s will (liberum arbitrium), when steeled by asceticism, as sufficient in itself to desire and to attain the loftiest ideal of virtue. The value of Christ’s redemption was, in his opinion, limited mainly to instruction (doctrina)

411 CE

• DE FIDE TRINITATIS LIBRI III (lost)• ECLOGARUM EX DIVINIS SCRIPTURIS LIBER UNUS, of which we have a number of fragments

because they were preserved in Augustine’s responses• COMMENTARII IN EPISTOLAS S. PAULI, a work known to Augustine

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and example (exemplum), which the Saviour threw into the balance as a counterweight against Adam’s wicked example, so that nature retains the ability to conquer sin and to gain eternal life even without the aid of grace. By justification we are indeed cleansed of our personal sins through faith alone, but this pardon (gratia remissionis) implies no interior renovation of sanctification of the soul. For that period, Pelagius would have been announcing nothing novel, since the Antinomists of the early Apostolic Church were already familiar with “justification by faith alone.” In a later culture, this sola-fides doctrine would obtain the assent of Martin Luther.

Pelagius and a traveling companion would pass on into Palestine and Ephesus without actually meeting Bishop Augustine.

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Bishop Augustine published DE PECCATORUM MERITIS ET REMISSIONE LIBRI III and DE SPIRITU ET LITTERA in opposition to the spiritual influence of the teacher monk Pelagius in the vicinity of Carthage.

412 CE

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During this year or the next Bishop Augustine would publish DE PERFECTIONE JUSTITIAE HOMINIS in opposition to Pelagius (in none of such oppositional writings would he so much as mention the name of the person against whose influence he was scribbling).

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

414 CE

Pelagianism “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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July: Pelagius had issued a work now lost, DE NATURA, in which he attempted to support his doctrine by appeal not only to the authority of Hilary and Ambrose but also to the earlier writings of his opponents Augustine and Jerome, and Augustine had immediately responded in DE NATURA ET GRATIA, to which Jerome responded with DIALOGUS CONTRA PELAGIANOS. In this month therefore a diocesan council imposed silence upon all parties, until a decision could be reached.

December: Pelagius was summoned before a synod of fourteen bishops in Diospolis (the ancient Lydda) but defended himself ably by denying that he had written what he is known to have written or that he had meant what his words clearly indicate.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

415 CE

Pelagianism “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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Pelagius published DE LIBERO ARBITRIO LIBRI IV, an address to Pope Innocent I (he had not been informed of this pope’s death) in which although he did not explicitly renounce earlier assertions he seemed to be verging toward Augustine’s conception of grace, etc. Clearly, he was not as interested as the bishop was, in provoking any confrontation.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Fall: The 67 bishops of Proconsular Africa assembled in a synod at Carthage, and the 59 bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Numidia, to which Bishop Augustine’s See of Hippo belonged, assembled in a synod in Mileve, to repudiate the doctrines of Pelagius.

416 CE

Pelagianism “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project

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January 27: Bishops Augustine, Aurelius, Alypius, Evodius, and Possidius had sent a joint letter to Pelagius, detailing their collective understanding of the church’s doctrines of original sin, infant baptism, and Christian grace, and on this date the pope prepared three separate letters excluding Pelagius from communion pending his coming to his senses (donec resipiscant) about the nature of original sin and the nature of grace.

September 23: In regard to the Pelagius controversy, Augustine announced from his pulpit that “Jam de hac causa duo concilia missa sunt ad Sedem apostolicam, inde etiam rescripta venerunt; causa finita est.”1 The announcement was premature because although the defined doctrine had been condemned, it had not yet been firmly established that Pelagius actually held this condemned doctrine. Pope Zosimus would give the African prelates two months to establish this connection.

November: The African prelates of the church hastily convened a synod at Carthage and issued a collective letter to Pope Zosimus, urging that he not rescind the sentence which Pope Innocent I had pronounced against Pelagius until he had confessed the necessity of interior grace for all salutary thoughts, words, and deeds.

417 CE

1. “Two synods having written to the Apostolic See about this matter; the replies have come back; the question is settled.”

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March 21: Pope Zosimus assured his prelates in Africa that he had not cleared Pelagius but was merely helping them initiate a new, joint investigation of his alleged heresies.

May 1: The Council of Carthage, made up of 200 bishops, convened to denounce Pelagianism as heresy. This Council would come to some eight or nine conclusions:

April 30: The Roman Emperor Honorius, at Ravenna, banished all Pelagians from the cities of Italy. (Pelagius himself was not affected as he was elsewhere at the time, probably somewhere in the Middle East.)

418 CE

• Death came to Adam not out of physical necessity but because of his sin. • The newborn must be baptized to free them from Adam’s original sin.

• Justifying grace not only provides forgiveness of past sins, but also helps in avoidance of future sin.

• The grace of Christ not only discloses the knowledge of God’s commandments, but also imparts strength to will and execute them.

• In the absence of God’s grace it is not merely more difficult, but rather is absolutely impossible, to perform any good works.

• Not out of humility, but in truth must we confess ourselves to be sinners.• The saints refer the petition of the Our Father, “Forgive us our trespasses,” not only to

others, but also to themselves, and they do so not out of mere humility, but out of truthfulness.

• There is no “middle place” (medius locus) to which children go if they die without being baptized.

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June 9: Pope Zosimus having issued to all the bishops of the world his famous lengthy EPISTOLA TRACTORIA giving a minute account of the entire “causa Caelestii et Pelagii” and categorically demanding the condemnation of the attitudes of Pelagius as a heresy, and eighteen bishops of Italy having been exiled for refusing to sign this papal decree, at this point the emperor also jumped in with both feet, taking firm action against any remaining Pelagians.

419 CE

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Pelagius died, presumably somewhere in the Middle East since the cities of Italy had been closed to him.

425 CE

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The main centers of the Pelagianism which remained were Gaul and Britain. A synod held probably at Troyes in this year took steps against the heresy. It also sent emissaries to Britain to fight the heresy there. After another century, Wales would have become the centre of the remaining Pelagian intrigues.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

429 CE

PELAGIUS

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Pelagianism

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Pope Celestine sent Palladius to Ireland to be its initial Bishop.

Nestorian Christianity was condemned at the 3d ecumenical congress, known as the Council of Ephesus (while Nestorians were describing Christ’s divinity and his humanity as separate, the winning faction of the Christian hierarchy were describing them as coequal, and what was at stake was whether the Church should derive its leadership from Alexandria, Constantinople, or Ravenna). Augustine and Pelagius were dead and gone, but their dispute had lingered. Pelagianism was, however, being eradicated from at least the eastern half of the Church. Mary was proclaimed as the Mother of God (Theotokos).

Letters of Nonnus of Panopolis, and John Cassian.

The Egyptian Christians, lacking military power, were forced from Alexandria into Syria and Iraq, where they would begin translating Greek scriptures into Syriac. Syrian Christianity split into an Eastern group known as “Nestorian” and a Western group known as “Jacobites.”

431 CE

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The Synod of Brefy attacked the Pelagianism which remained in Wales (Pelagianism was also still present in Ireland).

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” IS FABULATION, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

519 CE

PELAGIUS

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Pelagianism

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The 2nd Synod of Orange removed the last Pelagianism from the church.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

529 CE

PELAGIUS

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Pelagianism

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Daniel Walker Howe, MAKING THE AMERICAN SELF: JONATHAN EDWARDS TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (Studies in Cultural History. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, page 247, then pages 248, 252, 254):

Well, but that’s not all this author has to say about our Henry. On his page 211 he alleges that “when Transcendentalists like Thoreau took note of concrete reality, they did so to capture its symbolic and ideal meaning. The whole thrust of Unitarianism, including Transcendentalist Unitarianism, intellectual and artistic activity was to go beyond the material in search of the ideal, in short, the Platonic Quest.” And on his page 235 he opinions that “David” (he claims this is what the Thoreau family called him) “despised the world of middle-class respectability that Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass worked so hard to join.... Polite culture he rejected along with the prudential rationale that justified it. Yet Thoreau was, in his own way, engaged in the same sort of enterprise as Lincoln and Douglass: consciously constructing an identity of his own.”

1997

In defining society as the enemy of individual development, HenryThoreau is, of course, the polar opposite of Horace Bushnell....Thoreau believed that his American contemporaries lacked secureindividual identities and were vainly pursuing them throughsocially defined but unsatisfactory roles — a criticism recentlyrepeated by the cultural historian Lewis Perry [BOATS AGAINST THECURRENT: AMERICAN CULTURE BETWEEN REVOLUTION AND MODERNITY, 1820-1860 (NY:1993)].... According to Thoreau, one who engages successfully inthe quest for personal authenticity will discover that his self-made identity is also his natural one. (He thus resolves theconflict between the Jacksonian celebration of the natural man andthe Whig celebration of the constructed one.)

Thoreau was the ultimate Pelagian: whatever was important in lifecould only be achieved by an individual for himself. Most of thereformers of his day made the mistake, he felt, of trying to redeemothers.... The important thing for Thoreau was that a personshould take direct action out of principle, regardless of whatform that action took.... “Resistance to Civil Government” is thework of a prophetic critic of society and spiritual mentor of theindividual. The message of the essay is existential rather thanphilosophical; it is congruent with the message of his otherwritings. Be clear about your priorities in life, he alwayschallenged his audience. Set these priorities for yourself.Simplify your life by sticking to what you really believe in;refuse to be distracted by other people’s standards. The essay on“Resistance to Civil Government” is a special case of this generalchallenge.

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <Kouroo@kouroo.info>.

Prepared: January 18, 2014

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place requests with <Kouroo@kouroo.info>. Arrgh.